Thunderhead Trail (5 page)

The Tyler ranch was five miles out of town, situated along the foothills that served as stairs to the high country. It consisted of a house, a stable, a bunkhouse and a chicken coop.

The rancher was on his porch with a couple of his cowhands and a woman who must have been his wife.

Fargo was mildly surprised to see that nearly twenty people had gathered to hear what Jim Tyler had to say. And he wasn't the only one.

“I didn't expect this many,” Rafer Crown said.

“The five thousand has brought them out of the woodwork,” Dirk Peters said.

“Look at them,” the bounty hunter grumbled. “Most couldn't find their asses without help.”

Fargo was looking, and he was inclined to agree.

There was an old woman, pushing seventy if she was a day, in a bonnet and dress, armed with a Colt Dragoon, of all things, strapped tight around her waist. The Dragoon was so heavy, her holster sagged halfway to her knees.

There were three kids on their own, the oldest not more than twelve or thirteen, all with freckles and red hair and squirrel rifles.

There was a young man and woman in smart city clothes who looked enough alike to be brother and sister. She was twirling a parasol and he looked bored.

“God in heaven,” Dirk Peters said.

“I need a drink,” Crown muttered.

Fargo was still looking. He guessed that a big man in bib overalls was a farmer and that a pair of men in red caps and checkered shirts were loggers. Fully three-fourths were townsfolk who would be lucky if they could track themselves to the outhouse.

“Nothing to say?” Dirk Peters asked him, grinning.

“It's plumb ridiculous,” Fargo said.

“Make that two drinks,” Crown said.

Jim Tyler was supposed to kick things off at ten. It wasn't much past nine but he stepped to the porch rail and surveyed those who had gathered and seemed about as impressed as anyone with common sense would be. Then he set eyes on Fargo, Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters and gave a nod of approval.

“He knows we're not worthless,” Crown said.

The rancher cleared his throat. “My name is Jim Tyler, as all of you surely know. This ranch you see around you is one of the first in the territory. I have high hopes for it. If I can make a go of raising livestock, others might try the same. Ten years from now, a lot of folks could be making their living off cattle, just like in Texas and Kansas and elsewhere.”

“Bet he's one of those long-winded cusses,” Dirk Peters said.

Tyler continued. “I brought a herd all the way from Texas. They say I'm one of the first to do that. I also brought my prize bull. I call him Thunderhead because the day we got here, there was a gully-washer, and he was a sight standing there with his big horns and all while the rain poured down and lightning split the sky.”

“Yep,” Dirk said. “Long-winded as hell.”

Tyler had paused and was grinning at a memory. “Getting Thunderhead here wasn't easy. He didn't want to come. He especially didn't like walking so far every day. So we tricked him. He was partial to a heifer my missus took to calling Mabel, and one of the hands led her by a rope and Thunderhead would follow. If not for her, we'd likely still be in Texas.”

There was a smattering of laughter.

“I've treated that bull like he was part of the family. Had a special pen made. Gave him plenty of feed and care. Hell, I treat him as good as I treat my wife.”

More polite laughter rippled.

“I can't tell you how important Thunderhead is to me. My whole future rests on him. He can mean the difference between my ranch succeeding or dying.”

“An iffy proposition,” Rafer Crown commented, “depending on cows for a living.”

“Two months ago, as you've undoubtedly heard, Thunderhead disappeared. I came out to his pen one morning and he was gone. The gate got open. How, I don't know. I always made sure it was shut at night. I feared it might be redskins. Blackfeet have been seen hereabouts a lot lately. But I couldn't find any sign of them. No moccasin prints, no tracks of unshod ponies, nothing.”

“That's all we'd need,” Dirk said.

Tyler's shoulders slumped. “I thought maybe Thunderhead had been rustled, but I couldn't see someone just leading him off. He'd put up a fuss.”

“Could he have opened the gate his own self?” the man in the bib overalls hollered. “I had a cow that could do that.”

“I suppose,” Tyler said. “If he hooked his horn under the bar and lifted. But he never once tried to get out. He had it easy and I suspect he knew it.”

“Did you try tracking him?” asked the old woman with the Colt Dragoon.

“I did, ma'am,” Tyler answered. “I'm not much shakes at it but I tracked him into the mountains yonder and lost the sign.”

Fargo gazed to the west where a rugged range formed an arc some seventy miles long. Beyond, and higher still, reared the stark backbone of the Rockies.

“I'm desperate,” Tyler was saying. “Which is why I sent out the circulars some of you have seen. And why I'm offering five thousand dollars to have my bull back in his pen where he belongs.” He surveyed those who had come. “If you want to go after him, fine. If you find him, the money is yours. But I should warn you. The mountains are no place for infants. If you're green to this, you shouldn't be going.”

“He has that right,” Dirk Peters said.

“There are grizzlies up there, and wolves, and more besides,” the rancher said. “There are those Blackfeet I told you about, who will lift your hair as quick as look at you.”

“Right about that, too,” Dirk said.

“I don't want any of your lives on my conscience. If you've never hunted or tracked before, go home. The bounty isn't worth your life.”

“It is to me,” Rafer Crown said.

None of the listeners made a move for their mounts.

“Very well, then,” Jim Tyler said. “It's on your heads. But I warn you one last time. A lot of you could well die.”

After the rancher was done, Fargo went up and offered his hand.

Tyler looked at him and at Crown and Peters. “You three strike me as the best of the bunch.”

“We should,” Dirk Peters said.

“If your bull is still breathing,” Rafer Crown said, “I'll find him.”

“If I don't find him first,” Dirk Peters said.

“I like gents with confidence,” Tyler said. “You'll need it up there.”

Just then the old woman wearing the Colt Dragoon came over. “Good to see you again, Jim.”

“Esther,” Tyler said. “What in God's name do you think you're doing?”

“My Charlie was a damn fine tracker and he taught me his tricks,” Esther said. “I have as good a chance as any of these other idiots.”

“Why are you looking at me, lady?” Dirk Peters asked.

“You have idiot written all over you.”

“Here now,” Dirk said.

“You're too old,” Tyler bluntly told her.

“Old, hell,” Esther retorted. “I've got more vinegar in me than you four peckerwoods put together.”

“Lady, I don't like being insulted,” Rafer Crown warned.

“What are you going to do? Shoot an old woman for speaking her mind?”

“Is it the money?” Tyler asked her.

“What else?”

“I liked your husband, Esther. He was a good man,” Tyler said. “It's a shame the Lord took him to his reward and left you alone. You should go back east. Don't you have a daughter who lives in Missouri?”

“Hell, living with her would bore me to tears. I'm going after your bull and that's final.” Esther smiled sweetly and walked off.

“Damn,” Dirk Peters said. “That is one feisty gal.”

“Feisty won't help her much with the Blackfeet,” Rafer Crown said.

Now it was the farmer who approached, his thumbs hooked in his suspenders. “Mr. Tyler,” he said with a nod of greeting.

“Humphries,” Tyler said. “Shouldn't you be tending to your fields?”

“For five thousand dollars they can wait.”

“You're worse than Esther,” Tyler said.

“Worse how? Your bounty is more than I'd earn in ten years. I could have a bigger farmhouse built, treat my family to things.”

“You can't if you're dead,” Tyler said.

“I've hunted. I'm not helpless.”

“I hope not, for your family's sake.”

Humphries smiled at them and strolled away.

“What have I done?” Tyler said to himself. “These people are going to get themselves killed.”

“You haven't seen anything yet,” Dirk Peters said, gesturing.

The young couple in the smart city clothes approached, looking for all the world as if they were out for a Sunday stroll. The woman twirled her parasol, the young man ran a finger over his neatly trimmed mustache.

“Mr. Tyler,” the young man said. “We wanted to make your acquaintance, my sister and I.”

“Good God,” Tyler said.

“Now, now,” the young man said. “I'm Glyn Richmond and this is my sister, Aramone. Don't let our attire deceive you. My sister and I are more competent than you appear to think. She's a fine shot. She once bagged a squirrel at two hundred yards.”

“A squirrel?” Dirk Peters said, and snorted.

“Squirrels don't claw you to pieces,” Rafer Crown said. “Grizzlies do.”

“I assure you, good sir,” Glyn Richmond said, “we're prepared for anything.”

“Does that include the Blackfeet?” Dirk Peters asked.

Aramone was eyeing Fargo. She ran her gaze from his hat to his boots and up again. “And who might you be, tall and silent?”

Fargo told her.

“You won't be disappointed, will you, handsome, if we beat you to the bull?” she teased.

“Sis,” Glyn said.

“I'm only being friendly.” Aramone twirled her parasol and winked at Fargo and they ambled off.

“The females fall right over you, don't they?” Dirk Peters said, and laughed.

“Must be nice,” Rafer Crown said.

Jim Tyler wasn't the least bit amused. “They shouldn't be here. Nor most of the rest.”

“They're grown-ups,” Dirk said. “They can do as they please no matter how dumb it is.”

“Not all of them are grown,” Crown said. He was staring at the three redheaded boys.

“These Blackfeet,” Fargo thought to bring up. “Is it a war party? And how many?”

“The word I got is that there's seven or eight,” Tyler answered. “The hunter who saw them didn't say if they wore war paint or not.”

“Doesn't matter if they do,” Dirk Peters said. “They'd likely as not scalp any white they caught anyway.”

“There's something else,” Jim Tyler said, and lowered his voice. “Something I should have told everyone else, I reckon. It's about Thunderhead.”

“Let me guess,” Dirk Peters said. “He'll balk at being brought back.”

“I figured as much but that won't stop me,” Rafer Crown said.

“He'll do more than balk,” Tyler informed them.

“What else can he do?” Dirk asked.

“Kill you.”

“How's that again?”

“Thunderhead has gored three men to death.”

To Fargo this bull hunt was getting better by the moment. First there were all the greenhorns. Then there were the Blackfeet. And now, “You're saying Thunderhead is a man-killer?”

Tyler nodded. “It's why the rancher in Texas was willing to sell him.”

“Hell,” Dirk Peters said.

“Two of the men he gored were trying to herd him into a pen,” Tyler said. “For some reason he snapped and gored them. The third man was on the way here. One of my hands was trying to persuade him to ford a river and he brought down the hand and his horse.”

“And you didn't think to tell everyone else?” Dirk said.

“I don't want them so scared of him that they shoot him if he acts up.”

“I won't be gored,” Rafer Crown said. “Your bull tries that with me, I'll put lead in his brainpan.”

“See? Please, try not to,” Tyler said. “I'm begging you.”

“Better and better,” Fargo said.

“How's that?”

Before Fargo could answer, a woman on the porch called to the rancher and he excused himself, saying simply, “It's the missus.”

“What do you think?” Dirk Peters asked when the rancher was out of earshot.

“I'm right pleased,” Crown said.

“Why?”

Crown motioned. “Most of these folks don't have a snowball's chance in hell of finding that critter. I can almost feel the money in my poke.”

“Put the cart before the horse, why don't you?” Dirk said. “Any one of them could have a stroke of luck and find him.”

“More likely they'll find an early grave.”

The pair went on talking as Fargo made for a pump toward the side of the house. He worked the handle and after half a dozen tries water splashed out. Cupping his hand, he caught some and drank.

“How about a little for a lady, there, handsome?”

Fargo turned.

Aramone Richmond had closed her parasol and was holding it across a slender shoulder. She smiled and ran the tip of her tongue along her ruby lips. “I'm terribly thirsty.”

“There's no cup,” Fargo said.

“Who needs one?” she said, with a meaningful look.

Fargo pumped and cupped and held out his hand to her. Grinning, she pressed her lips to his palm and sipped, her eyes on his the whole time. When she was done, she flicked her tongue across his wet palm.

“That was nice of you.”

“I can be nicer,” Fargo said.

“Oh?”

“Come visit me sometime when your brother isn't around.”

“Listen to you,” Aramone said huskily. “What would you do if we were alone?”

“Screw you silly.”

Where some women would be offended, Aramone laughed merrily. “Promises, promises,” she said, and stared at his crotch. “You never know what might happen up in those mountains.”

“Anytime,” Fargo said.

With a saucy flip of her hips, Aramone sashayed toward her brother. She looked back and puckered her lips as if blowing Fargo a kiss.

“I'll be damned,” Fargo said.

Over on the porch, Jim Tyler turned from his wife and raised his arms to get everyone's attention. “You're welcome to start hunting for Thunderhead anytime you want.”

“Hold on, mister,” a man called out. “What about those trappers who saw him? Where did they see him at?”

“About ten miles northwest of here.”

“Anything else we need to know?” someone else asked.

Fargo expected the rancher to tell them about the gorings but Tyler shook his head.

“I wish each of you the best of luck. Thunderhead means everything to me. Whoever finds him will have my eternal thanks.”

“I'd rather have the money,” Humphries, the farmer, said, provoking more laughter.

Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters came to the pump.

“I reckon this is where we part company,” Crown said. “From here on out it's every hombre for himself.”

“We could work together,” Dirk suggested. “Split the money three ways.”

“No, thanks,” Crown said. “Sixteen hundred dollars is a lot less than five thousand.”

“With the Blackfeet on the prowl, we'd be better off.”

“They don't worry me none,” Crown said. “I've fought redskins before.” He touched his hat brim and departed.

“Well, damn,” Dirk said, and faced Fargo. “How about you? I'm willing to settle for half if you are.”

It wasn't the money as far as Fargo was concerned. It was the fact he preferred to go it alone.

“Never mind,” Dirk said. “I can tell by your face you're not interested, either. It must be my breath.” He touched the brim of his high-crowned hat and left.

Fargo turned to go and found his way barred by Esther, the old gal with the Dragoon. She was giving him a strange sort of scrutiny. “Ma'am?” he said.

“You know,” she said, “you look good enough to eat.”